Category Archives: CDC

A report on Friday, in the Washington Post, said that the current regime in Washington was forbidding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from using seven words and phrases in official documents being prepared for their budget for next year.

When news of this development became public, no doubt images of the George Orwell novel, 1984 came to mind, with its doublespeak and newspeak concepts straight out of a dystopian future. The novel was published in 1948.

But it also brought to my mind, something many Americans of my generation and older remember from the world of comedy. The late comedian, George Carlin, had a routine about the seven words you could not say on television.

This being a family blog, I will not repeat them here, but I bet the folks at the CDC did when they learned about this attempt to stifle free speech.

The seven words that the Orangutan Regime is forbidding are as follows: “Diversity”, “Entitlement”, “Evidence-based”, “Fetus”, “Science-based”, “Transgender”, and “Vulnerable.”

According to the Post, policy analysts at the CDC in Atlanta were told of the list on Thursday at a meeting with senior officials who oversee the budget, an analyst at the meeting said.

The analyst, who spoke anonymously, said that the analysts were given alternative phrases such as “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes.” Talk about Doublespeak.

In other cases, the analyst said there were no replacement words. Since the Orangutan took office, questions as to how to address sexual identity, gender identity, and abortion rights has surfaced in federal agencies. Several departments have changed some federal policies and how they collect information on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, the article in the Washington Post reported.

For instance, in March, HHS dropped questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in two surveys of older Americans.

HHS also removed information about LGBT from their website, and the Administration for Children and Families achieved a page that outlined services available to LGBT persons.

The meeting on Thursday was led by Alison Kelly, a senior leader in the agency’s Office of Financial Services, the anonymous analyst said. It was pointed out that this person was not authorized to speak publicly. At the meeting, Kelly did not say why the words were being banned, and said she was merely relaying information.

The existence of this list of forbidden words was confirmed by other CDC officials, and it is likely that other parts of HHS are operating under the same guidelines, the analyst told the Post.

According to the analyst, the reaction of people at the meeting was “incredulous”, “Are you serious?”, and “Are you kidding?” There were probably some other choice words thrown in, such as the seven dirty ones I mentioned above from the world of comedy.

Alison Kelly told the analysts present at the meeting that “certain words” were being sent back for correction. Those words were “vulnerable”, “entitlement” and “diversity.”

In a related story from The Hill, HHS is pushing back on the report saying the agency was not allowing personnel at CDC to use words like “diversity”, “transgender” and “fetus” in official documents.

HHS spokesperson, Matt Lloyd told The Hill Saturday, “HHS will continue to use the best scientific evidence available to improve the health of all Americans. HHS strongly encourages the use of outcome and evidence data in program evaluations and budget decisions.”

Now that summer is almost upon us in the US, employers and those in other industries, like health care and medical travel, as well as the travel industry itself, should be fully aware of these facts.

Only time will tell before we have native cases of Zika here. You must be prepared.

I am willing to work with any broker, carrier, or employer interested in saving money on expensive surgeries, and to provide the best care for their injured workers or their client’s employees.

Ask me any questions you may have on how to save money on expensive surgeries under workers’ comp.

I am also looking for a partner who shares my vision of global health care for injured workers.

I am also willing to work with any health care provider, medical tourism facilitator or facility to help you take advantage of a market segment treating workers injured on the job. Workers’ compensation is going through dramatic changes, and may one day be folded into general health care. Injured workers needing surgery for compensable injuries will need to seek alternatives that provide quality medical care at lower cost to their employers. Caribbean and Latin America region preferred.

Transforming Workers’ Comp Blog is now viewed all over the world in over 250 countries and political entities. I have published nearly 300 articles, many of them re-published in newsletters and other blogs.

According to two reports on NBCNews.com, the Zika virus is more dangerous than health officials first thought.

The first report from last week can be found here. The second report says that Zika goes to the brain, and causes nerve damage similar to that caused by multiple sclerosis. Zika destroys developing nerve cells.

What does this mean to you, the medical travel facilitators working in Central and South America?

It means that maybe, money spent to attract patients to your countries, might first be better spent cleaning up your slums and cities that have standing water and debris that can be a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that carry the disease.

It also means that you must work closely with your government agencies to assure that medical travel facilities are clean and prepared to deal with the disease, should there be patients who come down with the disease while getting medical care there.

Quotes

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

– Muhammad Ali

“If people are not laughing at your goals, your goals are too small..”

– Azim Premji

“Those who say your dreams are ridiculous have given up on theirs.”

– Unknown

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

– Thomas Carlyle

“As the work is done for the employer, and therefore ultimately for the public, it is a bitter injustice that it should be the wage-worker himself and his wife and children who bear the whole penalty.”

– President Theodore Roosevelt, 1907

To permit every lawless capitalist, every law-defying corporation, to take any action, no matter how iniquitous, in the effort to secure an improper profit and to build up privilege, would be ruinous to the Republic and would mark the abandonment of the effort to secure in the industrial world the spirit of democratic fair dealing.

– Theodore Roosevelt, 1908

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

– John Kenneth Galbraith

“Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of their right to join the union of their choice.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“Mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges… which are employed altogether for their benefit.”

– Andrew Jackson

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong it’s reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

– Abraham Lincoln

“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.”

“Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.”

– Karl Marx

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, NOT on fighting the old, but on BUILDING the NEW.”

– Socrates

“Every man takes the limits of his field of vision for the limits of the world”

– Arthur Schopenhauer

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

– Arthur Schopenhauer

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

– Winston Churchill

“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”

– Robin Williams

“There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with.”

– Woodrow Wilson

“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”

– John Stuart Mill

“The masters of the government of the United States are the combined capitalists and manufacturers of the United States.”

– Woodrow Wilson

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.”

– Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health [care] is the most shocking and inhuman[e]…”